The English Fair

by David Kerr Cameron

This comprehensive and readable new study examines a long-neglected subject and its impact on trade and everyday lives. Based not only on wide exploration of local sources, museum and library archives, but also on extended interviews with old farmers and dealers, the book traces the fair's history from early Saxon times to the present day, examining why today's fairs are based purely on entertainment rather than trade. David Kerr Cameron traces the fair's history from its lowly beginnings in the ancient landscape, through its periods of growth under the patronage of the Church and the granting of royal charters and its eventual transformation into the all-important livestock and specialist events of the regions.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1998

About the author

He may have spent most of his life as a journalist in London, but David Kerr Cameron never forgot the rigours of farming life in his native Aberdeenshire, which he wrote about with un-sentimental vividness in his three best-loved and award-winning books. The Ballad and the Plough (1978), Willie Gavin, Crofter Man (1980), and The Cornkister Days (1984), all of which won Scottish Arts Council Awards, gave the social history of the North-East a readability that drew comparisons with the work of the late John Prebble.

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